Soviet Pop Music?

But yeah, Kino is the best that I've heard of Soviet era pop/rock music.

"gravelly, Tom Waitsy voice"...unfortunately, this describes every Russian male vocal, ever. even in trance tunes! this is my main problem with it.

i forgot to mention that, to hear what this late soviet stuff did for the next wave of music in russia, buy trikonts 'russendisko' compilation. that looks pretty good.

Also, I believe that the Scorpions were super-popular in Russia due to bootleg tapes and lps that came from Germany....this was even pre-Wind of Change iron curtain pandering.

And then there was how the Soviets saw pop music elsewhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt_pWu80YsE

Wow, I wish more Western pop was like that.

nice revive :)

http://s3.directupload.net/images/101119/59ch2u72.jpg

Vyacheslav Mescherin Orchestra - on the beach
Playing & Singing Orchestra 66 / ВИО-66 - prosti menya
A. Kuznetsov & Variety Orchestra - alyosha

Is it good? I have this, from 1982:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d195/richhunt35/RUSSIANLP001.jpg

It is quite listenable and mature romantic pop, a lot of accomplished women singers
and so forth. It isn't "cool", it's like a lot of mainstream adult international pop of its time.

I enjoyed it.

YouTube has some videos, I will sift through later and maybe post a few.

Kevin Debroux from Pink Reason played a bunch of really neat 80s stuff on WFMU a while back. i guess his parents upped and moved from the States to Siberia when he was a kid. tough break!

very much worth listening to:
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/29583

Reposted from Wikipedia, but this is an amusing Zvuki Mu story:

Zvuki Mu (Russian: Зву́ки Му), a Russian alternative rock/indie/post-punk band, was founded in Moscow in the early 1980s. Lead singer and songwriter Pyotr Mamonov is one of the most creative, revered and eccentric figures of the Russian art scene, whose absurdist lyrics are as playful and disturbing as his vocal style and explosive on-stage presence. The band's sound combined starkly simple yet textured melodies with synthesizer sounds, quite unlike anything else heard in Russian rock at the time. One of Zvuki Mu's albums was produced by the famous British musician and producer Brian Eno. He invited the band to London, to record their first studio album. During this visit they did a gig at the ICA. They had little money, and slept on the floor of poet and writer, Anth Ginn. They spent all their money in the Brixton Exchange Mart, on second hand musical instruments. According to legend, Brian Eno met them at his flat to plan the recording session. He had to go out for a couple of hours and told them to make themselves at home. When he got back they were unconscious on his kitchen floor, surrounded by several hundred pounds worth of empties from his expensive booze collection. Apparently he was not happy.

attn chicago

Traces in the Snow is a feature length
documentary on Siberia’s punk scene
in the 1980’s. Directed by Russian
author and film director Vladimir
Kozlov, this first-of-its-kind
documentary uses rare footage of
Siberian punk legends including the
punk poet and songwriter Yanka
Dyagileva and the controversial godfather
of Russian punk Yegor Letov,
along with contemporary inter views,
to recount the story of Siberia’s
improbable punk scene.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019
5:00 PM

https://arts.uchicago.edu/event/film-screening-traces-snow

This seems to be the best place for me to post this as anywhere!

Sign up now for the Zoom-Panel with Soviet Rock 'n' Roll Musicians with Joanna Stingray 🎸 March 5 from 12pm - 1pm Pacific Time, hosted by the Wende Museum of the Cold War and moderated by music journalist @NedRaggett https://t.co/6NoNtmwyOh pic.twitter.com/zMtREYEg6V

— DoppelHouse Press (@DoppelHouse) February 25, 2021

So yes, I'll be moderating a chat with Stingray, creator of the legendary Red Wave compilation -- her book's amazing, and the panel will feature a slew of veterans from the scene and bands she featured. Tickets on sale!

wow, definitely need to watch this.

surprised at bugaev participating in the event (and representing pop mekanika out of all things) - and him being referred to by his old nickname, when apparently he came to represent the views directly opposite to the views people like me associate with that old name. ned, do you know artemy trotski? if you do, ask him about bugaev..

I don't know Mr. Trotski but I've chatted some with another Russian friend about these issues in the past -- a bit involved! I'll be working with an overall set of questions I've contributed to, since the base goal is to introduce people over here/elsewhere who might be unfamiliar with the music or scene in general and also have Joanna's thoughts on the time/place but there will also be a Q&A following the initial panel discussion where anyone can chime in, hopefully!

involved, perhaps, but it really comes down to the fact that it seems to be completely inappropriate for him to be there, especially representing that era. oh well, it's not about him, it's about joanna's book and i'm looking forward to hearing her thoughts. hopefully his presence will not diminish that.

Just reposting that the chat happens tomorrow!

great voice, ned! :)
didn't get my question answered even though it got marked as "already answered live".

fun trivia: i remember the vinyl being sold on st petersburg black market but it was prohibitively expensive, like any other imported vinyl sold there.

Ha! Well, such are the vagaries of the market. Glad you liked it!

well, the irony was that everybody already had what was released on red wave, via the usual tape copying channels. it was the fact that it was a "proper" vinyl release that made it significant (even though melodia releases for all 4 bands would follow just a couple years later).

Right, that follows -- very much a moment in time. I hadn't realized how much I was psyching myself up for presenting the panel until I felt the relief after it was over and it went pretty smoothly!

you did a great job considering you had to handle a conversation in two different languages and people switching back and forth!

there was a very sweet moment at the end when joanna was saying goodbyes and yuri kasparyan mouthed "love you" to her

Okay a happy double post today -- first, a link to a recording of the panel itself, along with some introductory material

https://doppelhouse.com/legends-of-soviet-rock-zoom-panel-available-for-viewing/

And second, in a good example of excellent timing, Todd L. Burns's Music Journalism Insider ran an extended piece today on underground Soviet rock journalism. Perfect combo!

https://musicjournalism.substack.com/p/the-soviet-unions-unofficial-music

good article, but i would challenge some of the statements made there, including some self contradictory ones. like it starts off by saying "And while it was forbidden to use the word “rock” itself until 1984" but then it mentions that the Lenigrad Rock Club was created in 81, and i definitely remember seeing the word used in official publications (like the mentioned in the article Peer) in the early 80s, and without quotes.

also, this statement:

Western music and news made their way into the Soviet Union primarily through the “enemy voices” of Western shortwave radio stations, such as Voice of America, BBC, Radio Luxembourg, and Radio Liberty.

is somewhat Moscow / St Petersburg centric. this was certainly not the case for many parts of the country - the main source of modern western music was through the semi illegal tape copying shops, or people making tape copies. same for music info, samizdat was more important for local artists/bands as there definitely would be nothing about them in the official publications, unless it was one of those pieces talking about the "bad western influence". there was the infamous hit piece about Time Machine in one of the central newspapers, for instance - even though Time Machine at that point was officially recognized and seen as "acceptable". the funny thing was that for the band's fans it was actually seen as a badge of honour.

for western music, the main source of info was still the official publications, and the way they got away with it was to present it either as "look at those depraved western bands!" - but having an excuse to supply fans with photos and interesting trivia, or to present rock as an anti capitalism / labour rights thing. Peer was definitely one of the main sources for that.

Where do I put a Vaso Patejdl RFI / S&D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrelzl_FEaU

Is an unauthorized Melodiya pressing of a record a "bootleg" if it was fully legal and legitimate in the Soviet Union at the time of release?